The White Sox 3-5 year window

[Lillian]

14 minutes ago, BrianAnderson said:

disclaimer: i am all for enjoying the day to day of this run. every single day is fun with this team, the park being packed is a joy, and it would seem we have an endless supply of depth on deck for any key injuries over the next couple years. This is what sitting through Saladino, Tilson, Nicky D, Derek Holland was all about. 

That said! (haha) it is interesting to see what the Cubs are currently going through. Personally, I do not want to be them in 4-5 years. I strive to be the Cardinals. (Or the Rays) or the A's. The Ray's and A's are probably bad examples because they operate too thinly where they really never break out the pocketbooks, however they're constantly making tough decisions about very good players who are about to get paid and then flipping them for younger, cheaper, controllable guys. They're obviously the outlier. It's hard to continuously make good trades like them and remain in contention. I'd rather be more of the Cardinals model which is kind of the Rays lite. Some trades, but also mixing in some bigger commitments in guys like Goldy and Arenado. 

For the Rays - I mean we're talking Blake Snell. Tommy Pham. Chris Archer. Hell, it's Willy Adames - where that trade looks bad. It's trading Nate Lowe. Trading Matthew Liberatore for Arozorena. Trading Jesus Sanchez (those last two Liberatore and Jesus Sanchez are nice, nice prospects now w the marlins and cards). They traded Nick Solak. Evan Longoria. It goes on and on and on. 

Meanwhile you have the Cubs - who admittedly were in a tough position, but who, much like the Padres went for it all. They basically chose to ride it out with these guys even on a flawed team. it would've taken a lot of breaks over the past 2.5 years to go the cubs way and get through the playoffs with that team. Now those guys are older, not controllable, and not going to return any value. It's kind of like the Rockies - instead of churning Arenado, Story, etc at highs, now they get nothing in return. So it's always the balance question. 

Currently we have a pretty weak minors system - probably bottom 5. and - it should be. We've graduated a whole damn team who is controllable. over the next 2-3 years it's going to be extremely important to restock that via draft, but also supplemental trades for not only depth, but payroll costs, and continuous winning. Who would you be willing to part with during a 3-5 year window as we're competing for a trophy, to continuously supplement and support the future?

To me, names I'd consider: (this will be unpopular)

Eloy - he's obviously locked in through 2026. But if we're talking a guy who maybe doesn't have the intangible tools outside of his bat and could return a big package? Eloy is probably right up there. Come 2023/24 he'd be the type of guy i'd be willing to listen on. Kind of a carlos lee type guy. When you lose him, although a great bat, it can almost be made up in another way via the field, speed, intangibles etc. 

Giolito - we have him through 23. i think it's probably certain he's not going to take a discount to stay. it's a bit soon to react about the spin rates and sticky stuff and would expect him to turn back into an ace. That said, JR isn't getting him for 3-4 year deal, so you'll get a comp pick. Can you flip him to an NL contender and slot in Crochet with reasonable results? Rodon? I just think if we're being very heady about this, you may have a comparable talent in some of our other guys. Wouldn't be opposed to locking up a Rodon and trading a Gio at a peak returning a very, very strong package of guys.

Keuchel - this is not so much a return, you won't get one. But opening up payroll to supplement a bullpen or bench need. Arguably you can get more of his salary if it's gone. 

Heuer - this one isn't realistic this year. But these type of guys - the guys who sky rocket one year - can you trade them immediately? Remember when we were discussing Burnes and Heuer was being thrown around as part of the package. Sometimes a bit of seasoning on these guys really plummets their trade value. I wouldn't mind selling high on some guys. sure some may turn out to be actual stars, but thats the risk. 

 

likely not a fun topic and one that will take heat, but being the larger market team in a bad division i think we should strive for 8 playoff seasons in 10 years type of goals, not just 3-5 years of dominance and then repeat of nicky delmonico's again. 

You won't get any "heat" from me. That is a very thoughtful and interesting post. Thanks.

[hi8is]

“The White Sox rolled out a $128MM payroll on opening day this year, already the highest in franchise history, but don’t expect Chicago to curb their spending now. Team options for the newly acquired Cesar Hernandez and Craig Kimbrel would bring their payroll for next season up to $150MM — and that’s before arbitration raises – but owner Jerry Reinsdorf and GM Rick Hahn have prepared for this payroll spike and they’re ready for it, per The Athletic’s James Fegan. If Hernandez and/or Kimbrel aren’t part of the 2022 Sox, it won’t be because of their impact on the payroll.“

Mlbtraderumors.com citing an Athletic article.

[Boopa1219]

I was going to make a post about free agency but I post this year for now.

The Sox need to upgrade their bench and utility guys. They need to replace guys like Leury Garcia with people who can take walks, put up solid OBP’s and guys who hit the ball in the air.

They hit the ball on the ground way too much and if their not hitting, the offense can’t get anything going. 

[SoxBlanco]

2 hours ago, Joshua Strong said:

I was going to make a post about free agency but I post this year for now.

The Sox need to upgrade their bench and utility guys. They need to replace guys like Leury Garcia with people who can take walks, put up solid OBP’s and guys who hit the ball in the air.

They hit the ball on the ground way too much and if their not hitting, the offense can’t get anything going. 

The problem is that players who are better than Leury are going to want to sign with a team where they can start. It’s not as easy as people think to grab great utility players. I think Leury is fine as a utility player, as long as he doesn’t have to play as often as he has this year because of injuries. And he has a lot of positional flexibility. 

[caulfield12]

15 hours ago, SoxBlanco said:

The problem is that players who are better than Leury are going to want to sign with a team where they can start. It’s not as easy as people think to grab great utility players. I think Leury is fine as a utility player, as long as he doesn’t have to play as often as he has this year because of injuries. And he has a lot of positional flexibility. 

Not a problem at all if willing to pay $6-8 million per year…if the team can afford that luxury.

[Saufley]

Not sure if there has been a Rodon thread, but just wonder about his next contract. Hoping the Sox can sign him this year and would 4/80 do it and would the Sox be willing to go there. Thoughts on Giolito, also?

[CentralChamps21]

30 minutes ago, Saufley said:

Not sure if there has been a Rodon thread, but just wonder about his next contract. Hoping the Sox can sign him this year and would 4/80 do it and would the Sox be willing to go there. Thoughts on Giolito, also?

Would 4/80 do it? Almost certainly. Would the Sox be willing to go there? Almost certainly not.

[CentralChamps21]

On 2/4/2021 at 9:32 PM, southsider2k5 said:

They have risked 9 figure contracts.  They had the highest offer out to Wheeler at 9 figures, and lost.

Supposedly had a huge offer out for Machado as well, but sometimes I wonder if those offers get made knowing that they're unlikely to be accepted.

[KrankinSox]

18 minutes ago, WhiteSoxFan1993 said:

Supposedly had a huge offer out for Machado as well, but sometimes I wonder if those offers get made knowing that they're unlikely to be accepted.

Pretty sure the Sox thought they had Wheeler.

[ChiSox59]

2 hours ago, Saufley said:

Not sure if there has been a Rodon thread, but just wonder about his next contract. Hoping the Sox can sign him this year and would 4/80 do it and would the Sox be willing to go there. Thoughts on Giolito, also?

I can pretty much guarantee you the Sox won’t be the high bidders on Rodon. Ride him hard. 

[South Side Hit Men]

19 hours ago, SoxBlanco said:

The problem is that players who are better than Leury are going to want to sign with a team where they can start. It’s not as easy as people think to grab great utility players. I think Leury is fine as a utility player, as long as he doesn’t have to play as often as he has this year because of injuries. And he has a lot of positional flexibility. 

The problem is the manager who plays his utility player every single day because he is a switch hitter, regardless of the fact he sucks at hitting (.388 OPS last 7 days, .483 last 28 days).

[YourWhatHurts]

Rodon's a lot like Kimbrel pre-2021 in terms of how his value went from nothing to extremely desirable, except as a #1 SP Rodon's value ceiling is way higher than Kimbrel's could ever be.  In hindsight we should have traded the Cubs a bag of balls during the offseason and just taken on Kimbrel's contract.

IMO 4/80 wouldn't do it and if it would, the Sox should offer it.  Something more fair might be $25 in 2022 (the QO threat) with a mutual option for 2023 for like $30 or $35 with a $5M buyout or something like that if the team declines and the player accepts.  Carlos on a 1 year deal while we are trying to win a title is still a great value at that price.  If Bauer can turn 3/8 of a season into essentially something like 2 years $40M AAV under normal circumstances then Rodon is worth at least that much on that scale, given the LH and stuff upgrade over Bauer. 

I also like the idea of shopping Giolito as another poster mentioned.  Of course dumping Keuchel's deal would be nice as well.  But we would need to sign a FA starter for 2022 in that case.  I wonder if the Padres would do Gio for Clevinger + Gore or something similar to that?  Also the Dodgers might offer a real nice package of a short-term piece and a long-term piece.  I would be in favor of this way of doing business generally in order to try to extend the playoff window out another couple of seasons.  IMO, as long as you have a two-headed monster of TOR starters at the front of your rotation and a shut down back of the bullpen, you have a shot at doing damage in the playoffs.  I would like to see our SP window get a little longer on the back side.

Of course a Giolito extension should still be on the table anyway.

Edited August 8, 2021 by YourWhatHurts

[YourWhatHurts]

9 minutes ago, South Side Hit Men said:

The problem is the manager who plays his utility player every single day because he is a switch hitter, regardless of the fact he sucks at hitting (.388 OPS last 7 days, .483 last 28 days).

The biggest problem is the fans who forget that they are getting middling production constantly from the same 1 player who is playing all over the place instead of middling production from some combination of players who don't have the versatility of Leury which varies throughout the season.  And the other big problem is that the Sox have had so many injuries.  There's really nothing wrong with Leury.  That $3M or whatever he is making to play all over the field is an excellent value and he's definitely a guy other teams would want to have.

Bitching about Leury is just bitching for the sake of it IMO.

[YourWhatHurts]

19 hours ago, SoxBlanco said:

The problem is that players who are better than Leury are going to want to sign with a team where they can start. It’s not as easy as people think to grab great utility players. I think Leury is fine as a utility player, as long as he doesn’t have to play as often as he has this year because of injuries. And he has a lot of positional flexibility. 

He will collect more PAs than other UT types because he is one of the few rare **true** UT types.  These days, you can be a shit backup 3B/1B/LF guy and someone will call you UT.  You can have a noodle for an arm and get penciled into SS and people will call you a UT player.  Leury is one of those few guys who can literally play everywhere except P and C, plus he can come in as a defensive sub, PR, and is a switch hitter with a high contact rate and a little bit of pop.  He's definitely a rarity and his versatility theoretically allows a manager the roster flexibility to carry more limited types of players like Lamb, Sheets, or Hamilton for other roles.

[South Side Hit Men]

18 minutes ago, YourWhatHurts said:

The biggest problem is the fans who forget that they are getting middling production constantly from the same 1 player who is playing all over the place instead of middling production from some combination of players who don't have the versatility of Leury which varies throughout the season.  And the other big problem is that the Sox have had so many injuries.  There's really nothing wrong with Leury.  That $3M or whatever he is making to play all over the field is an excellent value and he's definitely a guy other teams would want to have.

Bitching about Leury is just bitching for the sake of it IMO.

“The fans” aren’t penciling in Leury 90 times and counting. He is best used as a infield reserve or late inning defensive replacement at this point.

The team is carrying six other players who have played OF this season. Leury continues to start regularly in the OF. He can’t hit righties, he can’t hit lefties. He has no platoon advantage. It is fucking absurd. 

[SoxBlanco]

55 minutes ago, South Side Hit Men said:

“The fans” aren’t penciling in Leury 90 times and counting. He is best used as a infield reserve or late inning defensive replacement at this point.

The team is carrying six other players who have played OF this season. Leury continues to start regularly in the OF. He can’t hit righties, he can’t hit lefties. He has no platoon advantage. It is fucking absurd. 

I’m gonna give TLR the benefit of the doubt when it comes to load management throughout a 162 game season, especially with the injuries we’ve had. He can play Leury all 162 games for all I care if it meant a healthy team ready to go for the playoffs with a playoff lineup that didn’t include Leury. 

The fans usually care about each individual game more than a manager like TLR, who has been around the block several times. 

[GreenSox]

Be proactive to keep up the starting pitching.  Think ahead.
Don't be afraid to move players early.

That should keep the window perpetual.

[Boopa1219]

21 hours ago, SoxBlanco said:

The problem is that players who are better than Leury are going to want to sign with a team where they can start. It’s not as easy as people think to grab great utility players. I think Leury is fine as a utility player, as long as he doesn’t have to play as often as he has this year because of injuries. And he has a lot of positional flexibility. 

There willing bench guys out there who are better than Leury.

And I’m not asking for much, Leury is horrendous, he’s awful. He’s lucky to be in the bigs. The Sox are too good a team to have a guy like him on the roster. I doubly he could stick in Pittsburgh or Baltimore. 

[SoxBlanco]

5 minutes ago, Joshua Strong said:

There willing bench guys out there who are better than Leury.

And I’m not asking for much, Leury is horrendous, he’s awful. He’s lucky to be in the bigs. The Sox are too good a team to have a guy like him on the roster. I doubly he could stick in Pittsburgh or Baltimore. 

Do you think Leury will be starting in the playoffs?

[BamaDoc]

15 minutes ago, Joshua Strong said:

There willing bench guys out there who are better than Leury.

And I’m not asking for much, Leury is horrendous, he’s awful. He’s lucky to be in the bigs. The Sox are too good a team to have a guy like him on the roster. I doubly he could stick in Pittsburgh or Baltimore. 

Not being a jerk but could you identify some of these upgrades?

[BRDSR]

20 minutes ago, BamaDoc said:

Not being a jerk but could you identify some of these upgrades?

I don’t know if I’m being a jerk or not, but the suggestion that Leury wouldn’t be on a tanking team’s roster is absurd.  The argument about how many games per week he should be starting on the Sox is certainly a valid one.  An argument that he shouldn’t be on a bad MLB roster is terribly misguided.

[southsider2k5]

41 minutes ago, Joshua Strong said:

There willing bench guys out there who are better than Leury.

And I’m not asking for much, Leury is horrendous, he’s awful. He’s lucky to be in the bigs. The Sox are too good a team to have a guy like him on the roster. I doubly he could stick in Pittsburgh or Baltimore. 

I think you are vastly overestimating the amount of starting caliber players there are in MLB, and vastly underestimating what roster construction in 2021 makes valuable to a team. 

[CentralChamps21]

3 hours ago, ChiSox59 said:

I can pretty much guarantee you the Sox won’t be the high bidders on Rodon. Ride him hard. 

Don't ride him so hard that he can't win in the postseason, but yeah, some team that is desperate for starting pitching is going to offer him more years and/or dollars than would make sense for the Sox, barring an injury to one of the other starters.

I would love him back, though. Having six starters and being able to skip one each time through the rotation would be an amazing luxury.

[caulfield12]

3 hours ago, YourWhatHurts said:

Rodon's a lot like Kimbrel pre-2021 in terms of how his value went from nothing to extremely desirable, except as a #1 SP Rodon's value ceiling is way higher than Kimbrel's could ever be.  In hindsight we should have traded the Cubs a bag of balls during the offseason and just taken on Kimbrel's contract.

IMO 4/80 wouldn't do it and if it would, the Sox should offer it.  Something more fair might be $25 in 2022 (the QO threat) with a mutual option for 2023 for like $30 or $35 with a $5M buyout or something like that if the team declines and the player accepts.  Carlos on a 1 year deal while we are trying to win a title is still a great value at that price.  If Bauer can turn 3/8 of a season into essentially something like 2 years $40M AAV under normal circumstances then Rodon is worth at least that much on that scale, given the LH and stuff upgrade over Bauer. 

I also like the idea of shopping Giolito as another poster mentioned.  Of course dumping Keuchel's deal would be nice as well.  But we would need to sign a FA starter for 2022 in that case.  I wonder if the Padres would do Gio for Clevinger + Gore or something similar to that?  Also the Dodgers might offer a real nice package of a short-term piece and a long-term piece.  I would be in favor of this way of doing business generally in order to try to extend the playoff window out another couple of seasons.  IMO, as long as you have a two-headed monster of TOR starters at the front of your rotation and a shut down back of the bullpen, you have a shot at doing damage in the playoffs.  I would like to see our SP window get a little longer on the back side.

Of course a Giolito extension should still be on the table anyway.

At best, you will get Paddack+ for Giolito.

They’re not going to sell low on Clevinger coming off injury when they sent a boatload of prospects to get him…then turn around and sell low on Gore as well.

Trading two for one when their biggest need is starting pitching still…it’s kind of like our three for one to get Todd Ritchie from the Pirates back in the day. 

 

[South Side Hit Men]

2 hours ago, SoxBlanco said:

I’m gonna give TLR the benefit of the doubt when it comes to load management throughout a 162 game season, especially with the injuries we’ve had. He can play Leury all 162 games for all I care if it meant a healthy team ready to go for the playoffs with a playoff lineup that didn’t include Leury. 

The fans usually care about each individual game more than a manager like TLR, who has been around the block several times. 

They have six OFers at this point (since they don’t play Lamb in the infield after 3 attempts this season). It’s not about fretting about an individual game. Leury started three OF games this month, Sheets once. 

Leury was needed to play near everyday when Madrigal was out, and before when 3-4 OFers were out. Made complete sense. He is valuable for the ability to do that WHEN he is needed. 

Had no issue with Leury at SS today before Tony switched back, or resting Cesar or Yoan. That’s what he’s there or should be there for.

Just don’t need to continue to sit young outfielders when your roster is now one away from fully healthy, and continue to start Leury in the OF on a regular or even semi regular basis. When Robert returns, and they likely send down Sheets (or release Lamb), he should never start in the OF beyond future additional injuries. He should back up 2B, SS and 3B, or be a late defensive replacement (infield or outfield)

LF - Eloy / Andrew

CF - Luis / Adam

RF - Adam / Brian / Andrew / Lamb or Sheets

Edited August 8, 2021 by South Side Hit Men